Pakistan, India and the possibility of change

Pakistan has been defined – sometimes by itself, sometimes by outsiders – as “not India” for so long that it has almost become set in stone. Conventional wisdom would have it that Pakistan can unite its many different ethnic and sectarian groups only by setting itself up in opposition to India and stressing its Muslim identity against Indian secularism and pluralism. In particular, its powerful army has thrived in part because of that traditional enmity with India.

Yet viewing Pakistan through such a simple prism can be misleading, especially if by freeze-framing it within a historical perspective, it denies the possibility of change.

In many conversations during a trip I just made to Pakistan, I found the subject of India to be remarkable largely for its absence. The United States is of course popularly perceived as a bigger enemy now, but even talk of relations with America – the big obsession of the western media — was dwarfed by an inwards focus on Pakistan itself.

None of that is to suggest a sea-change in Pakistan’s view of India — its military in particular remains configured for war with its much bigger neighbour. And given that Pakistan’s foreign and security policies — including once nurturing militant groups to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir – have been shrouded in secrecy for decades, few would dare say with certainty exactly what is going on.

But there is a change, at least in relative terms. Pakistan has so many internal problems – the Taliban insurgency, a weak economy, poor governance, political, ethnic and sectarian violence - that “the Indian threat” has receded, while the fear of internal threats to national security has grown. And amongst people not in positions of authority, the conversation is far more likely to be about power cuts and price rises.

True, the Urdu-language media (or so I’m told) still blames India for many of Pakistan’s problems – the CIA/Mossad/R&AW conspiracy is useful for those who cannot explain the rather bewildering speed at which conditions in the country have deteriorated. Yet some of the passion seemed to have gone out of it. Nobody asked me – as they did when I first visited Pakistan from India in 2004 - about “rivers of blood” in Kashmir.

The question of Pakistan’s view of India has now become subject of a furious debate being played out across op-ed columns and on Twitter.

In India, former Minister of State and author Shashi Tharoor wrote in defence of Taseer’s piece. The “Indian threat”, he said, was “a useful device cynically exploited by the Pakistani military to justify their power”. But he triggered the most anger by turning his sights on what the headline writer on his article called Pakistan’s “delusional liberals” who he said were unwilling to take on the Pakistan army – in his view the cause of all the tensions with India.

In a column in the Daily Times, headlined “We the ‘delusional’ liberals”, Marvi Sirmed wrote that Tharoor ”may also like to know more about the diversity of Pakistani ‘liberals’ before passing judgments … if our liberalism determines the degree to which we should hate our country, it is essentially one certificate that I would not like to get from him. ”

Feisal Naqvi complained in a column in the Express Tribune that, “Mr Tharoor further believes that Pakistan has no legitimate identity besides a rejection of India and that Pakistani liberals — if truly liberal — would acknowledge this fact. He thereby not only confirms all of the Pakistani establishment’s worst fears about India, but also helps delegitimise Pakistani liberals as would-be traitors, even though they are the very persons calling for peace with India.”

But the fact that argument is being held at all shows something has changed. It is no less remarkable for being obvious that Pakistanis and Indians are now communicating more than ever before, in real-time, via Twitter, when not that long ago there were no direct flights and it could be difficult even to get a phone call through from Delhi to Islamabad.

The foreign ministers’ meeting will be the culmination of a series of talks between top officials covering everything from defence to trade and follow talks between the foreign secretaries – the top diplomats – in Islamabad last month. They are expected to review talks so far, and set a course for future discussions — prosaic stuff unlikely to grab much attention in the 24-hour international news cycle. But there too, there may be signs of change in approach. For all their deliberate dullness, they are worth following, rather than assuming the many failures at peacemaking of the past will be repeated in the present.